


the art of pretending

by reapingfolk



Category: Korean Drama, One Fine Day (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapingfolk/pseuds/reapingfolk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When Gun looks at the ocean, he sees Han Neul. When he looks at the sky, he sees Han Neul. Wherever he turns, he only ever sees Han Neul, the single desire that is everything." Hyoo Ju is good at pretending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the art of pretending

She tells him, "It's always a bad idea to fall in love with a sick girl," and he gives her a smile that tells her she's wrong but doesn't clarify which part isn't true. Is it that all those television stories are just inaccurate and it isn't such a bad thing to love a sick girl? Or is it that she isn't sick, she's getting better every day, and that surgery means the same as miracle for the both of them?

Or is it, worst of all, that he's refuting what's implied instead of what's explicitly claimed. Is it that he isn't falling in love with her, can't fall in love with her, and that this is all just pretend?

Hyoo Ju knows it is but she figures, when you only have a year or two to breathe fresh sea air and look at the person you love across the dinner table, pretend is more than good enough.

She tells herself this.

-

Australia may share the same sky as Korea but that's where the similarity ends. Everything was wrong in Korea. The air was too stifling, the climate too hot, the spaces too enclosed, the love too painful. In Korea, love was like air, all around, but it was too painful to take in and too painful to let out. And yet, what can you do but breathe if you want to live? Hyoo Ju didn't want to live in Korea and the emphasis is on the live in that thought.

Australia is open spaces. It's her father and her brother and her childhood. It's Gun, who is the world and the sea and the sky all rolled up in one dependable, solid form. In Australia, Hyoo Ju will get better, she will get her surgery and become healthy and marry Gun and live happily ever after in a nice house on the rocks overlooking the beach. In Australia, Hyoo Ju can believe this.

But Australia shares the same sky as Korea and the same sea as well. It's hard to forget this sometimes.

On her back, next Gun, Hyoo Ju shades her eyes against the glare of the sun.

"How can we watch clouds if there are no clouds to watch?" she asks and her words are reflected in the clear blue expanse above them both.

"Of course there are," Gun teases. "There's one that looks like a rabbit."

His hand reaches above her eyes and trace outlines of invisible clouds. The soft, sure motions of a confident hand hypnotizes effortlessly.

"Over there. That's one that looks like you. All big cheeks and pouting face."

Hyoo Ju can see herself in the sky even though she's not really there. That's the magic of love, or maybe that's just Gun. He's never lied to her before. If he says there is a cloud in the sky that looks like her, there must be.

"And near the cloud that's you - that's me! I think I'm carrying you on my back. I'm sure, even as a cloud, you must be really heavy."

Like that, she's crying again. Silently, with little hiccups now and then that she can't hold in, she's crying and she doesn't know why. She's always been a crybaby, with Gun always there to dry her tears and make it better, but lately it's been different. Lately, she's been crying without sound or words in the silence of their bedroom when he's away. Gun notices sooner than not and, with words unuttered, lifts her up into his arms with a softness greater than the nonexistent clouds above. He lays her down in bed and sits there next to her until she falls asleep.

Sometimes, when things are too honest and too true, you can do nothing but cry.

-

It's more than just the sky. Hyoo Ju lied to herself. It's the sea too.

Every day, Gun goes to the beach after work and sits there for an hour or two, just staring out at the water and the horizon. When they were kids, he used to run away all the time and go to the beach. A young Hyoo Ju would stare at her father as he wrestled a sobbing and fighting Gun out of the water.

"What is Gun doing?" she would ask her brother.

"He's trying to swim back to Korea."

"Why?"

"Ask him."

So she did. After months of fighting, Gun gave up trying to swim back and just settled into sitting on the sand whenever he could get away. In the beginning, before she figured out in her child's mind that he wanted to be alone, Hyoo Ju would follow Gun and watch him while he watched the ocean.

"You're with us now. Why do you want to swim back to Korea?" asked Hyoo Ju.

"My little sister is waiting for me."

"I'm your little sister. I'm right here."

"No, Hyoo Ju," Gun said and his ten-year-old face crinkled as it tried to explain something it had no words for. "You are but - there's Ha Neul. She's different from you."

"Ha Neul," Hyoo Ju tasted the name on her lips. "Sky. Like you."

"Yes, like me. Ha Neul's Gun. That's what I am. I told her I was coming back. It's been over ten days. She must be crying so hard."

"You're crying, Gun."

"I have to go back for her. I have to."

"You're crying. Why are you crying?"

"Why is the sea so big, Hyoo Ju?"

Hyoo Ju doesn't know why the sea is so big. Somethings are just larger than your entire world that way - the sea, the sky, a love that causes greater hurt than heart disease ever could, a little girl in a large aquarium who lived her life pretending to be a dead girl. Hyoo Ju doesn't know the why of a lot of things, but she does know how to pretend. She's been pretending most of her life and it's only taken her twenty years or so to figure out that she's not the only one.

Han Neul has been pretending to be a dead girl for fifteen years. Han Neul dressed up in the right clothes and she smiled the right way when people looked at her and she said the right things (or kept silent about the things she wasn't allowed to talk about) and never once did she let anyone know she was pretending. She pretended she was whole and complete. She pretended she didn't look at the same photograph every day, pretended she wasn't half of who she was, pretended she wasn't aching with everything in her for the sight of her sky.

Gun Oppa was the same way.

He laughs as he recounts the details of his day to Hyoo Ju across the kitchen table, the candlelight warming both of their smiling faces. He gets angry whenever Hyoo Ju forgets to take her medicine and he holds Hyoo Ju tight when they sleep, the Australian moon through the open window making a silver halo over their bed. He says he wants this or that, a new surfboard, a fixed fridge, but all of his proclaimed desires fall hollow and flat once they hit the air. All of it is just Gun doing what he has perfected for fifteen years - pretending he's there when he isn't.

Hyoo Ju doesn't go with Gun anymore to the beach. She doesn't ask him what he's looking for on the horizon and she doesn't do anything to break the elaborate web they've both woven.

Maybe Hyoo Ju's wrong. Maybe Australia doesn't share the same sky as Korea. Maybe, somewhere on the other side of the ocean, is a different sky (Han Neul), one with real clouds and honesty so sharp, it cuts through all of the pretending.

I'm sorry, Hyoo Ju whispers into the back of Gun's neck as he sleeps. I'm sorry you had to leave your heart behind twice.

But she's not really sorry. Even that is just Hyoo Ju pretending.

-

Hyoo Ju wears bright red lipstick because she's sick. Her lips are too pale without it.

She's been wearing bright red lipstick for so long, she hates it now.  
-

The surgery was a success.

The doctors were ecstatic, congratulating themselves as they crowded around her hospital bed. Gun just sat in the far corner, his face a a blank expression of shell shock.

Of course you are far from healthy, they said. But you will be. It will take a long time but your body will heal and you'll live for a long time, Ms. Goo. It's a miracle.

They leave and Hyoo Ju can't think of anything to say to Gun. He hasn't looked at her since she woke up and she doesn't know what to read in his impassive face. She knows he's happy, happy she's alive, happy she'll live, happy her heart won't hurt her anymore, but there's something else. Something they can't talk about that's keeping him silent and unmoving.

If he was supposed to stay with her until she died, what happens to them if she doesn't die?

It's dangerous to fall in love with a sick girl because she just might surprise you and live.

She has to say something. If the surgery was successful, why does her heart hurt so much? She has to say something.

"Gun?" Hyoo Ju asks and she hates that her voice cracked in the middle of his name. Hates that she's about to cry. Hates that she's still alive to hurt.

Gun looks up and, suddenly, the blank expression is gone and all that remains is soft love and joy. His little sister is alive.

"Don't worry," he breathes out and the way he stands up from the chair to walk over to her lets Hyoo Ju know that he isn't putting down the weight on his back, just shifting it so that he could carry it longer.

His hand on her forehead is cool.

"I'm not going anywhere. Just sleep."

-

Three years is a long time and Hyoo Ju may be spoiled, she may be unreasonable, she may be good at pretending, but she's not greedy. Even though Gun may think so, Hyoo Ju knows what they have was never meant to be for the rest of their lives. Like before the surgery, Hyoo Ju was living on borrowed time - or, more accurately, she was living a borrowed life.

When Gun looks at the ocean, he sees Han Neul. When he looks at the sky, he sees Han Neul. Wherever he turns, he only ever sees Han Neul, the single desire that is everything. That is love.

Hyoo Ju wakes up one morning and thinks, it's enough now. She packs up her things and writes Gun a note that neither apologizes nor excuses. Only tells him it's okay to stop pretending. Tells him his heart is still waiting for him where he left it.

Hyoo Ju throws away all her lipstick and gets on a plane. She doesn't know where she's going but she knows it's time for her to be somewhere that isn't Australia or Korea, some place with a different sky and no water.

In the air, as the plane crosses the Pacific Ocean, Hyoo Ju places a kiss on the window to her left. When she pulls back, she's surprised to see that there is no mark there. Without lipstick, there is nothing to stain the window, nothing to block her view.

Hyoo Ju smiles for the first time in years.

**Author's Note:**

> if ya'll are about that tumblr life, i'm [noepithets](http://noepithets.tumblr.com).


End file.
